Celebrating the Autumn Moon : Festival: Many Vietnamese joined in the 3rd Annual Tet Trung Thu, held at Golden West College.

HUNTINGTON BEACH —  Johnny Doan took a break from selling balloons at the Vietnamese Autumn Moon Festival on Saturday to watch an action-packed martial arts demonstration, sip a root beer and ruminate about the importance of remembering the past.

“I think it’s kind of great to see all these people here,” the 14-year-old Ocean View High School student said as he sat on the grass in the center of Golden West College. “They want to preserve their culture and heritage.”

Johnny Doan should know. The teen-ager was born on a small boat as it was leaving Vietnam. And he has had to prod his parents from time to time to teach him about the traditions of their homeland.

“I was sort of born along the way,” he said. Although he is more comfortable speaking English than his parents’ native language, he added, “It is a shame to lose your culture.”

Because of the tendency of the Vietnamese youths who grow up in the Southland to forget the birthplace of their parents, a Vietnamese youth-oriented organization calling itself Hang Moi, or New Dawn, is hoping to preserve at least one tradition.

On Saturday, in conjunction with Golden West College, New Dawn sponsored the 3rd Annual Tet Trung Thu, or the Autumn Moon Festival, one of the two most important festivals in Vietnamese culture, group adviser Sinh Van Ho said.

“With all the kids in America, we wanted to start a group that preserves culture,” Ho said. The Huntington Beach event is the largest organized Tet Trung Thu celebration in Orange County, he said.

But more important, he said, organizers rekindled the popular celebration of the new autumn moon to allow children to have a day of fun that will be remembered year-round.

“This is a lot like Halloween,” Ho said. “It is a special day for the Vietnamese people to pamper their children.”

About 15,000 people packed the center of Golden West College to eat traditional Vietnamese food, listen to music and watch performances by dragon and fan dancers, martial arts groups and singers.

The festival has its roots in ancient Vietnamese culture, when parents would charm their children with the fascinating legends of the moon, including the story of Hang Nga, the moon fairy. According to the legend, a beautiful woman who disobeyed her husband is sent to the moon. When the moon is full during the eighth month of the lunar year (this month), the legend goes, she can be seen if one holds a shirt up to the moon. Another legend has it that when the moon is full, one can see Chu Cuoi, a man sitting under a banyan tree.

Throughout the evening, children, many of them wearing traditional garb, with lighted paper lanterns, listened to stories about Hang Nga and ate delicious moon cakes--pastries filled with coconut, almonds, sesame seeds, beans, egg yolks and lotus seeds.

After the martial arts performers completed their exercises, a group of 20 young men dressed in black pants, T-shirts and bright red bandannas performed a hypnotizing dragon dance, in which two paper dragons writhed around each other on the stage.

“When the country has peace,” said Huy Nguyen, 26, of West Covina, who helped form the dance troupe, “then the dragons start to dance around together.”

Nguyen, who also left Vietnam in a boat six years ago, said that many fellow Vietnamese for the first time in years are enjoying the Tet Trung Thu.

“Over there (in Vietnam) there is no money for parents to spend on their children,” Nguyen said. “Over here we do.”

Lien Tram, 35, of Huntington Beach, sat on the lawn with her three children and watched intently as two women in the martial arts exhibition took turns showing the audience how to take down an opponent. She came to the United States in 1979.

“Since my three children were born here,” Tram said, “I wanted them to know what the moon festival is all about. It is fun.”